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Talking points: Don Cherry vs. Brian Burke

The simmering feud between Maple Leafs general manager Brian Burke and pugnacious talking head Don Cherry rose to a boil when the Coach’s Corner host ripped into Burke for a litany of sins.

By Sarah BarmakSpecial to the Star

Fri., March 9, 2012

The Issue: A nation of hockey fans weighed in on the clash of two larger-than-life personalities this week. The simmering feud between Maple Leafs general manager Brian Burke and pugnacious talking head Don Cherry rose to a boil when the Coach’s Corner host ripped into Burke for a litany of sins. Burke had complained about Cherry attacking former Leafs coach Ron Wilson — so after Burke fired Wilson last week, Cherry called him out for the apparent contradiction. Cherry also lashed out at Burke for having no Ontario players on his team — an accusation Burke called “garbage.”

Retired player Bob Nevin, a member of the 1962 Maple Leaf Stanley Cup champion team: “They are both good guys but it seems like they are acting like kids in the sandbox right now.”

Don Cherry on last weekend’s Hockey Night in Canada: “Every team in the National Hockey League has a guy from Ontario except one — it’s Ontario’s Toronto Maple Leafs. . . . If you want American college guys, if you want Americans you got the team.”

Burke on NewsTalk 1010: “I’ve run three drafts (with the Leafs), and in those three drafts that I’ve been here, we lead the league with eight Ontario-born players drafted . . . So the notion that we don’t like Ontario kids, that’s garbage.”

Steve Buffery, Toronto Sun: “That Burke accuses Cherry of being overly critical of his Leafs is laughable. Yeah, Cherry is hard on Wilson. Clearly he doesn’t like or appreciate the man. Many Leafs fans don’t. But to suggest that Cherry viciously attacks the Leafs is a knee slapper. Cherry’s a homer when it comes to the Leafs. He’s been known to wear Leafs paraphernalia for Pete’s sake. Ask an Oilers fan, or a Flames fan or, especially, a Senators fan, if they think Cherry is hard on the Leafs. As for the issue of Burke going to the CBC with his complaints about Cherry . . . well, if it’s true, nobody likes a tattler.”

Don Cherry on Hockey Night in Canada after Wilson was sacked: “Here’s what kills me — Burke goes to my bosses and says I’m a bad guy and I said something ‘vicious’ about his coach . . . Two weeks later he fires him. Figure that one out, folks.”

Ed Willes, Vancouver Sun: “Cherry had slowly been slipping into irrelevance for a couple of years but if you tuned in Saturday to his Coach’s Corner segment, you caught him at his best. He was passionate, irrational, funny, bombastic — in short, all the qualities that have come to define him over the last 30 years. It was also must-see TV and it’s been a while since Cherry provided that. . . . Teams have power. They want coverage that isn’t consistent with journalistic principles, and if you’re unaware of that, you haven’t been paying attention. OK, Cherry doesn’t exactly embody those journalistic principles, but his is a strong, clear and, most importantly, independent voice that needs to be heard.”

Rosie DiManno, Toronto Star: “When Cherry uses his platform to launch a personal trash-talking tirade against the Leafs general manager, and that general manager is president of the franchise that brings HNIC its biggest eyeball audience, and the Coach’s Corner carper hijacks the show with an inside baseball bit of highly personal hockey blather, then maybe the CBC should reconsider its priorities. The Leafs are a far more formidable product than the Cherry brand; Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment has been bought by Rogers and Bell, each with their own sports channel tentacle, and no doubt the incoming consortium, spurred by the club, will look less unfavourably upon their Crown corporation rival when broadcasting rights contracts come up for renewal.”

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